In my old home town of Caracas. The gates of hell must sound similar.
#23May Vean #Venezuela
Explotó un camión cisterna con gas , en la Autopista Francisco Fajardo a la altura de la segunda calle de Bello Monte.#BelloMonte
#incendio #caracas #bomberos pic.twitter.com/CPepaSIRpK— ?Dulce Maria??? (@PrincDulceMaria) May 23, 2020
This is the after most of the gas has already been consumed. That little crack crated that inferno?
Vía @NestorLReverol ??Hoy a aproximadamente a las 5:00AM, en la autopista Francisco Fajardo a la altura de El Rosal, se volcó un vehículo de carga de pesada que transportaba tanque con gas (30 mil lts de GLP), ocasionando una explosión y posteriormente el incendio del vehículo. pic.twitter.com/0XoIJfmarN
— MPPRIJP (@MIJPVenezuela) May 23, 2020
That flame I think was about 15 to 17 stories high. Damn. Local paper say nearby buildings were evacuated. The driver and assistant were got minor injuries and taken to the hospital.
Damn!
Was that a propane truck? GLP looks like the Spanish equivalent of LPG.
Yes sir, Hank Hill cried a bit
BLEVE: boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion.
There is not enough oxygen in the container for the fuel inside the tank to ignite. The fire on the outside hearts up the liquid inside boiling it. High pressure gas generated by the boiling liquid shoots out of the crack igniting when it hit oxygen in the open air. Turns the tank into a blowtorch.
When these gets bad enough they can act like a thermobaric bomb.
Dangerous as hell. Things like this have taken our refineries before.
@j.Kb it gets better. Sometime in the late 80’s early 90’s the Ballistic Research Lab was asked to help figure out how come train fires of tank cars would be “under control” and suddenly a huge explosion of a contained fire, often with fatalities.
Turns out that you are exactly right. A tank is ruptured and the contents start flowing out. The contents ignite, we now have heat being applied to the tank car. The contents of the tank care expand forcing more liquid out of the rupture.
But this doesn’t cause an explosion. Foam, water can get this mostly under control.
The problem happens when the level of the liquid in the tank car falls below that rupture. Suddenly there is a place of oxygen to enter the container and at that point you do get a, normally, massive explosion.
Yep. This is where the thermobaric aspect comes in. When the air gets sucked into the container and the vapor explodes inside the container that blows the hell out of everything.
There were designs for refinery parts that allowed the tanks to be purged with an inert substance. Nitrogen or water to blow the air out of the tank in case of an emergency to prevent a fire inside of the thank.